The  Menace  of 

Paternalism 

Otto  H.  Kahn 


"The  period  of  readjustment  and 
restoration  which  will  follow  the 
disorganization  and  destruction 
caused  by  the  war  will  tax  human 
wisdom  to  the  uttermost 

Many  of  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  the  present  social  order 
will  be  threatened;  some  will  be 
changed,  some  discarded,  while 
novel  and  possibly  extravagant 
and  dangerous  doctrines  will  find 
earnest  and  honest  advocates. 
With  all  this  we  must  reckon." 

From  an  address  by 

Hon.  Robert  Lansing 

Secretary  of  State 

at  Auburn,  N.  Y. 

October  11,  1918 


The    Menace    of 

Paternalism 

Otto  H.  Kahn 


An  address  before  the  Convention  of 
The  American  Bankers  Association 
Chicago,    September    27,  1918 


The  Menace  of 

Paternalism 
I 

"1%  TO  apology  is  needed,  I  believe, 
\  if,  in  this  meeting  of  business 
men,  I  begin  my  remarks 
with  a  tribute  to  the  American 
Army.  I  hope  I  am  not  usually 
given  to  boasting,  but  I  admit  that 
since  I  came  back  from  Europe  two 
months  ago,  I  have  been  boastful, 
vociferously  and  unblushingly  boast- 
ful, about  our  boys  "over  there"  and 
their  leaders. 

I  saw  the  American  soldiers  on  the 
boat,  in  their  cramped  and  crowded 
quarters,  many  of  them  away  from 
home  for  the  first  time,  all  but  a  few 

1561217 


THE  MIRACLE  OF 

of  them  on  the  ocean  for  the  first 
time  in  their  lives.  I  saw  them  in 
Paris  unconcernedly  playing  ball  in 
the  streets  while  bombs  from  long- 
range  guns  were  exploding  in  the 
immediate  neighborhood.  I  saw 
them  at  French  ports,  and  at  villages 
throughout  the  fair  land  of  France, 
cheerily  taking  things  as  they  came, 
the  rough  with  the  smooth — and 
there  was  a  good  deal  more  rough 
than  smooth — making  friends  with 
the  kids,  and,  especially  in  the 
case  of  the  fair  sex,  with  the  grown- 
ups too. 

I  met  them  as  foresters  in  the 
extreme  south  of  France,  near  the 
Spanish  frontier.  I  met  them  as 
engineers  and  in  numberless  other 
capacities  and,  finally,  I  saw  them  as 
fighting  men  at  the  front.  I  met 
many   of  their   leaders,   from   their 

4 


TEE  AMERICAN  ARMY 

great  chief,  General  Pershing,  down. 

I  saw  the  simply  marvelous  work 
at  the  French  ports,  in  our  huge 
camps  and  bases,  and  along  our  lines 
of  communication,  which  these  men 
had  accomplished  and  were  accom- 
plishing with  a  bigness  of  vision,  a 
boldness  of  planning,  a  directness  of 
attack,  a  perfection  of  execution  and 
a  courageous  assumption  of  responsi- 
bility, which  would  have  done  credit 
to  renowned  captains  of  industry. 

Everywhere  I  found,  amongst 
officers  as  well  as  amongst  men,  the 
same  simple  and  unostentatious,  yet 
steel-clad  determination  to  hold  life 
cheap  for  the  honor  and  glory  and 
safety  of  America.  Everywhere  the 
same  eager  and  tireless  exertion  and 
keen,  quick-witted  adaptability. 
Everywhere  the  same  modest  and 
soldierly  bearing,  the  same  uncom- 
5 


TEE  MIRACLE  OF 

plaining  endurance  under  hardships 
and  discomforts,  the  same  contempt 
for  danger.  Everywhere  the  same 
note  of  splendid  courage,  moral  and 
physical,  of  willing  discipline  and 
service,  of  buoyant  good  nature  and 
humor,  of  clean  and  kindly  thought 
and  feeling. 

And,  gentlemen,  I-  knew  then  that 
the  war  was  won. 

Those  more  competent  than  I  will 
tell  some  day  the  full  story  of  how 
the  American  Army  came  to  reveal 
its  fighting  qualities  to  its  valiant 
comrades  in  arms,  as  well  as  to  its 
brutal  and  insolent  enemy  to  whom 
that  revelation  came  as  a  most  un- 
palatable surprise. 

They  will  tell  how  last  March, 
during  the  gloomy  days  of  the  re- 
treat of  the  British  Fifth  Army,  six 
hundred    American    engineers,    to- 

6 


THE  AMERICAN  ARMY 

gether  with  a  number  of  British 
engineers,  who  had  been  at  work 
behind  the  hnes,  threw  away  their 
instruments  and  tools,  took  up  rifles, 
constituted  themselves  into  a  ram- 
part and  held  the  line  for  seven  long 
and  bloody  days,  until  reinforce- 
ments arrived;  how  a  couple  of 
months  later  our  men  again  showed 
the  stuff  they  were  made  of  by  storm- 
ing Cantigny  and  holding  it  in  the 
face  of  fierce  counter  attacks  again 
and  again  repeated  by  the  Germans, 
bent  on  giving  a  stern  lesson  to 
those  green  and  presumptuous 
Americans. 

They  will  tell  you  the  immortal 
story  of  the  fighting  of  our  marines 
and  regulars  at  Chateau  Thierry  in 
the  first  days  of  June,  in  those  dark 
and  menacing  days  when  the  enemy 
had    penetrated    within    thirty-nine 


THE  MIRACLE  OF 

miles  of  Paris;  how  those  men,  hur- 
riedly thrown  into  the  battle,  made 
of  themselves  a  spearhead  against 
which  the  onslaught  of  the  Germans 
broke  and  shattered,  and  the  tide  was 
turned. 

Since  then  our  young  army  has 
been  tested  in  many  a  battle,  and 
wherever  it  has  fought  it  has  proved 
itself  a  worthy  custodian  of  American 
honor  and  a  zealous  artisan  of  Ameri- 
can glory. 

I  should  like  to  add  that  in  express- 
ing my  intense  admiration  for  our 
army  and  its  achievements,  nothing 
is  further  from  my  thoughts  than  to 
take  away  one  tittle  from  the  im- 
mortal glory  which  belongs  to  the 
armies  of  the  allied  countries,  nor 
from  the  undying  gratitude  which 
we  owe  to  the  nations  who  for  four 
years    have    heroically    fought    the 


THE  AMERICAN  ARMY 

battle  of  civilization — our  battle  from 
the  very  beginning,  no  less  than 
theirs — and  borne  untold  sacrifices 
with  never  faltering  spirit. 

Now,  gentlemen,  what  is  the  un- 
derlying cause  for  the  phenomenon 
that  our  boys,  taken  from  the  most 
diversified  walks  of  life,  brought  up 
in  surroundings  and  in  a  spirit  which 
are  the  very  negation  of  martial 
disposition,  became  in  an  incredibly 
short  space  of  time  soldiers  of  first 
rate  efiiciency;  that  our  business 
men,  farmers,  mechanics,  college 
boys  are  making  competent,  indeed 
excellent  officers;  that  our  West 
Pointers,  taken  from  small  army 
posts  or  office  positions  in  Washing- 
ton, were  found  qualified  generally 
not  only  to  command  large  bodies  of 
troops,  but  that  amongst  them  were 
discovered    men    fitted,    when    the 

9 


THE  MIRACLE  OF 

emergency  arose,  to  plan  and  execute 
the  business  undertakings  of  war  on 
a  stupendous  scale  with  a  high  degree 
of  organizing  and  administrative 
ability  (even  though  these  men 
would  be  the  last  to  dispute  that  a 
considerable  share  of  the  credit  for 
the  results  accomplished  is  due  to 
those  who, .  at  the  very  start  of 
the  war,  eagerly  volunteered  from 
civil  life)? 

Why  did  our  commanding  officers, 
our  engineers  and  others  at  various 
French  ports,  at  our  army  bases, 
along  our  great  line  of  supplies,  in  a 
strange  country,  under  conditions 
entirely  new  to  them,  demonstrate 
the  capacity  of  rapidly  sizing  up 
situations,  of  boldly  meeting  and 
overcoming  difficulties,  of  vigorously 
cutting  the  red  tape  of  generations, 
of   accomplishing    to    the    admiring 

10 


THE  AMERICAN  ARMY 

amazement  of  our  French  friends  and 
comrades  things  which  the  bureau- 
cratic routine  of  ever  so  many  years 
had  found  itself  impotent  to  deal 
with? 


11 


AMERICAN  INITIATIVE 


II 


AMERICAN  INITIATIVE 
OR  BUREAUCRACY 

I  have  heard  these  questions  asked 
and  debated  a  good  many  times 
lately  both  in  England  and  France, 
and  the  consensus  of  replies  was  this : 

"You  in  America  have  always  been  a 
nation  of  private  enterprise  and  individual 
initiative. 

"Your  incentive  has  never  been  to  get  a 
governmental  title  or  a  bureaucratic  posi- 
tion. Your  incentive  was  zest  and  scope  for 
doing  things,  the  joy  of  creative  effort,  a 
certain  crude,  rough-hewn,  unsystematic, 
but  effective  idealism,  and  also,  of  course, 
the  material  reward  of  successful  achieve- 
ment. You  have  had  no  caste,  or  fixed  class, 
either  aristocratic  or  bureaucratic.  You 
have  given  almost  unlimited,  perhaps  too 
unlimited  scope  to  ambition,  ability,  force, 
imagination,  hard  work. 

"Your  employee  of  today  was  and  is  the 
employer  of  tomorrow. 

12 


OR  BUREAUCRACY 

"The  State,  far  from  enjoying  the  halo 
descended  from  kingly  times  of  something 
resembling  omnipotence  and  omniscience, 
and  being  all-pervasive  in  its  functions,  was* 
largely  limited  in  its  activities,  and  you  had 
a  healthy  skepticism  of  governmental  capac- 
ity to  do  things  well. 

"Under  the  stimulus  of  these  conditions 
you  have  produced  a  race — daring,  keen, 
quick-witted,  adaptable,  self-reliant. 

"The  American  of  today,  as  we  see  him  in 
the  officers  and  men  of  your  forces,  and  in 
the  business  men  we  have  met,  is  the  pro- 
duct of  sturdy  individualism." 

And  then  the  Enghshman  would 
be  apt  to  explain  that  the  rank  and 
file  of  Britishers  are  also  in  their 
heart  of  hearts  individualists  and 
normally  opposed  to  the  undue  multi- 
plication of  governmental  functions. 

He  would  not  dispute  that  the  war 
was  bound  to  bring  about  great  social 
and  economic  changes  together  with  a 
tendency  towards  far-going  radicalism 
and  towards  a  general  leveling,  but 

13 


AMERICAN  INITIATIVE 

would  maintain  that  the  ambitious 
programs  and  sweeping  pronounce- 
ments of  those,  largely  writers,  econo- 
mists and  theorists  who  ran  the  politi- 
cal end ,  and  only  the  political  end ,  of  the 
British  labor  party  did  not  represent 
the  level-headed  majority  of  the  rank 
and  file,  and  were  apparently  taken 
more  seriously  abroad  than  at  home. 

The  Frenchman,  being  like  most  of 
his  countrymen,  something  of  a  prac- 
tical philosopher  and  an  admirable 
talker,  would  be  liable  to  go  rather 
further  afield. 

He  would  point  out  that  France  has 
had  experience  of  bureaucracy,  gov- 
ernmental centralization  and  pater- 
nalism for  several  generations.  They 
had  tested  that  system  under  an 
autocratic  regime,  under  a  liberal 
monarchy,  under  a  bourgeois  repub- 
lic  and    under    a    radical,    and   at 

14 


OR  BUREAUCRACY 

times     semi-socialist,    republic. 

And  the  conclusion  was  widespread 
that  it  was  not  what  it  was  "cracked 
up"  to  be,  failing  a  great  organizing 
and  vitalizing  genius  like  the  first 
Napoleon  and  that  they  did  not  like  it. 

That  system  had  lamed  enterprise, 
atrophied  commercial  daring,  re- 
tarded the  development  of  the  coun- 
try, and  driven  a  large  portion  of  the 
national  wealth  into  speculative  un- 
dertakings abroad,  failing  construc- 
tive opportunity  for  it  at  home. 

It  was  largely  responsible  for  the 
fact  that  France,  naturally  the  richest 
and  most  abundantly  endowed  coun- 
try of  Europe,  had  permitted  itself 
to  be  out-distanced  economically 
and  industrially  by  other  countries 
less  favorably  situated  as  far  as 
natural  resources  were  concerned, 
notably  Germany.    It  had  allowed  a 

15 


AMERICAN  INITIATIVE 

state  of  affairs  to  develop  where  but 
for  the  magnificent  manifestation  of 
the  superb  innate  qualities  of  the 
French  race  which  no  governmental 
system  could  permanently  vitiate, 
Germany  might  have  come  measur- 
ably near  succeeding  in  its  infernal 
plan  to  cripple  France  lastingly. 

In  Russia,  bureaucracy  and 
paternalism,  plus  weak,  corrupt  and 
inefficient  autocracy,  had  led  to 
revolution,  chaos  and  anarchy. 

In  Germany,  bureaucracy  and 
paternalism  plus  militarism  and  jun- 
kerism  had  resulted  in  bringing  untold 
misery  upon  the  world  at  large  and 
inevitable  disaster  in  the  end  to  the 
German  people.  And  that  notwith- 
standing the  fact  that  not  only  was 
the  German  system  of  bureaucracy 
and  paternalism  the  most  efficient 
the  world  had  ever  seen,  but  that 

16 


OR  BUREAUCRACY 

with  deep  and  insidious  cunning  it 
camouflaged  its  true  meaning  and 
purpose:  It  made  an  alliance  with 
big  business  by  which,  in  return  for 
being  left  alone  and,  if  need  be,  sup- 
ported in  its  political  dominion  and 
in  its  particular  interests,  it  main- 
tained a  reciprocal  attitude  towards 
the  great  combinations  in  finance  and 
industry. 

It  furthered  enterprise  and  gave 
hberal  scope  and  rich  reward  to 
achievement. 

Its  method  of  dealing  with  labor 
was  in  part  to  coerce  it  and  deprive 
it,  by  direct  or  indirect  means,  of 
adequate  voting  and  political  power 
and  in  part  to  cajole  and  conciUate  it 
by  apparently  progressive  and  fair- 
seeming    social    welfare    legislation. 

In  other  words  it  aimed  at  making 
contented    and    prosperous    chain- 

17 


AMERICAN  INITIATIVE 

bearers  out  of  the  German  people, 
and  at  the  same  time — and  alas!  all 
too  successfully — at  substituting  for 
their  old  conceptions  and  ideals  a 
religion  of  greed,  covetousness, 
power-worship  and  materialism,  the 
deity  of  which  was  the  State  as 
represented  by  its  ruUng  caste. 

In  short,  my  French  interlocutors 
would  coincide  that  whenever,  w  her- 
ever  and  however  the  system  of  gov- 
ernmental omnipotence  had  been 
tried,  it  had  failed  in  a  greater  or 
lesser  degree;  that  France  had  given 
it  a  sufficiently  long  test  to  be  weary 
of  it,  and  that  after  the  war  the 
tendency  of  the  French  people  would 
be  rather  to  turn  towards  individual 
effort  and  to  stimulate  personal 
initiative— fully  conscious  at  the  same 
time  that  no  social  order  or  system 
was  thinkable  after  the  war  which 

18 


OR  BUREAUCRACY 

did  not  take  complete  account,  sin- 
cerely and  wholeheartedly,  of  the 
aspirations  and  just  demands  of  the 
rank  and  file. 

I  should  add,  in  order  to  give  an 
entirely  truthful  picture,  that  the 
Englishmen  whom  I  heard  discuss 
this  subject,  were  mainly  business 
men  and  others  whose  views  may 
have  been  somewhat  colored  because 
their  surroundings  and  interests 
would  naturally  tend  to  make  them 
averse  to  a  radical  change  in  the 
existing  order  of  things. 

But  the  French  feeling  as  I  have 
tried  to  set  it  forth,  I  heard  expressed 
by  all  kinds  and  conditions  of  men — 
from  workingmen  and  small  trades- 
people to  financiers,  military  officers 
and  statesmen.  And  it  should  be 
borne  in  mind  that  the  French  are 
endowed  Avitli  the  faculty  of  a  pro- 

19 


AMERICAN  INITIATIVE 
OR  BUREAUCRACY 

verbially  clear  recognition  of  the 
realities  of  things  and  more  than 
once  in  history  have  been  the  path- 
finders for  the  social  and  intellectual 
movements  of  the  world. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  cannot  be 
gainsaid  that  there  are  a  good  many 
persons  in  France,  as  in  Great 
Britain  and  America,  who  firmly 
believe  that  the  era  of  individualism, 
or  as  they  prefer  to  call  it,  capitalism, 
has  come  to  an  end,  and  that  an 
entirely  new  kind  of  social  structure 
will  be  reared  after  the  war. 


20 


THE  WAR  AFTER 
THE  WAR 


III 

THE  WAR  AFTER  THE  WAR 

They  are  very  active,  zealous  and 
eager,  these  mihtant  preachers  of  a 
new  day.  They  possess  the  fervor 
of  the  prophet  alhed  often  to  the 
plausibihty  and  cunning  of  the  dema- 
gogue. They  have  the  enviable  and 
persuasive  cocksureness  which  goes 
with  lack  of  responsibility  and  of 
practical  experience.  They  pour  the 
vials  of  scorn  and  contempt  upon 
those  benighted  ones  who  still  tie 
their  boat  to  the  old  moorings  of  the 
teachings  of  history  and  of  common 
sense  appraisal  of  human  nature. 

And  being  vociferous  and  plausible 
they  are  unquestionably  making  con- 
verts. 

21 


THE  WAR  AFTER 

They  are  offering  the  vista  of  a 
catching  program  to  the  popularity- 
seeking  poHtician.  They  are  per- 
turbing the  minds  of  a  good  many 
who  honestly  seek — as  every  right 
minded  man  should — to  bring  about 
a  better  and  more  justly  ordained 
world.  They  have  not  been  without 
producing  a  certain  effect  even  in 
high  places. 

Nothing  is  easier  than  to  start, 
nothing  moves  faster  when  once 
started,  than  economic  fallacies, 
especially  when  to  their  natural  speed 
is  added  the  impulse  of  a  glittering 
and  facile  idealism  which  holds  out 
to  the  world  surcease  from  many  of 
those  troubles  with  which  mankind 
has  grappled  since  its  progenitors 
left  the  Garden  of  Eden. 

Nothing  is  harder  than  for  sober 
unvarnished  truth,  loaded  down  with 

22 


THE  WAR 

the  weight  of  the  reaUties  of  existence, 
to  catch  up  with  those  fallacies.  It 
invariably  does  in  the  end,  but 
meanwhile  the  fallacies  on  their  long 
start  and  rapid  flight  may  have 
wrought  vast  harm,  as  we  have 
recently  seen  exemplified  in  Russia. 
We  hear  a  good  deal  nowadays  of 
"The  War  After  the  War"— meaning 
thereby  the  expected  economic  dis- 
cord and  strife  in  the  markets  of  the 
world  between  Germany  and  her 
vassals  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
Powers  now  arrayed  against  them  on 
the  other.  That  discussion,  to  an 
extent,  it  seems  to  me,  is  premature. 
Germany  and  those  who  aided  and 
abetted  her,  must  and  will  be  de- 
feated, decisively  and  completely 
defeated.  The  handwriting  on  the 
wall  which  proclaims  the  doom  and 
destruction  of  Prussianism  stands  out 

23 


THE  WAR  AFTER 

more  fatefully  and  legibly  every  day. 
The  treatment  to  be  accorded  to 
Germany  in  the  future  will  depend  in 
part,  at  least,  as  President  Wilson 
has  indicated,  upon  the  answer  to  the 
questions  whether  she  will  sincerely 
and  unmistakably  purge  herself  of 
the  accursed  spirit  which  has  made 
her  name  a  by-word  and  a  hissing 
amongst  decent  nations,  what  atti- 
tude and  action  she  will  take 
towards  those  loaded  down  with  the 
execration  of  the  world  who  prim- 
arily personify  that  spirit  and 
whether,  contrite,  chastened  and 
freed  from  the  hideous  rule  of  a  bar- 
barous military  caste,  she  will  atone, 
as  far  as  it  is  in  the  power  of  her 
people,  for  the  unspeakable  crime  of 
the  war  unchained  by  her  and  the 
atrocious  brutality  of  its  conduct. 
And    a    like    test    applies    to    those 

24 


THE  WAR 

nations  who  made  themselves  sharers 
of  her  guik. 

But  there  is  one  "war  after  the 
war"  for  which  the  hnes  are  now  being 
drawn,  and  which  indeed  the  attack- 
ing party  has  already  started, 
although  it  was  the  country's 
general  understanding  that  until  the 
war  against  our  external  enemy  is 
won,  internal  conflicts  should  be  post- 
poned: The  opposing  forces  are,  on 
the  one  side,  the  motley  army  rang- 
ing from  the  American  variety  of 
destructive  Bolsheviks  in  various  gra- 
dations to  self-seeking  demagogues, 
well-meaning  utopianists,  iconoclast 
theorists,  intolerant  and  impetuous 
young  writers  strong  in  the 
assured  consciousness  of  their 
mental  and  moral  superiority,  and, 
alas !  none  too  rarely,  college  pro- 
fessors and  other  teachers  generally 

25 


THE  WAR  AFTER 

underpaid,  frequently  overworked, 
some  rather  disgruntled  and  acidified, 
others  carried  away  by  untempered 
idealism  and  inclined  to  take  the 
world  as  a  theoretical  proposition 
rather  than  a  stubborn  fact. 

Confronting  that  army,  on  the 
other  side,  stand  those  who  believe 
that  the  accumulated  wisdom  of 
centuries  of  human  experience  is  wis- 
dom still,  and  who  see  in  individual- 
ism, ordered,  enlightened,  progressive, 
sympathetic  and  adjusted  to  the 
changing  needs  and  social  concep- 
tions of  the  age,  the  soundest  and 
most  effective  instrument  for  the 
advancement  and  the  happiness  of 
humanity. 

When  I  speak  of  individualism,  I 
do  not  mean  the  harsh  doctrine  of 
the  so-called  Manchester  school  of 
the  Nineteenth  Century  which,  with 

26 


THE  WAR 

a  somewhat  naive  faith  in  the  auto- 
matic and  beneficent  self-regulation 
of  human  forces,  bade  the  individual 
to  exploit  his  opportunities  to  the 
unrestrained  limit  of  his  strength, 
and  the  devil  take  the  hindmost. 
Nor  do  I  mean  the  picturesque, 
semi-romantic  but  socially  intoler- 
able individualism  which  in  the  pio- 
neer period  of  our  country's  develop- 
ment brought  forth  a  body  of  men 
whose  daring,  vision,  creative  energy 
and  striving  for  wealth  and  power, 
strangely  mixed  at  times  with  an  ele- 
ment of  idealism  and  emotionalism, 
did  much  to  produce  the  tremendous 
epic  of  America's  unrivalled  develop- 
ment, but  who  after  all  were  more  or 
less  industrial  despots  and  as  such — 
even  though  benevolent  despots, 
which  many  of  them  Avere — rightly 
obnoxious  to  a  free  people. 

27 


THE  WAR  AFTER 

About  ten  years  ago,  in  a  sketch 
wHich  I  wrote  of  that  great  business 
genius,  the  late  E.  H.  Harriman, 
I  said: 

"His  death  coincided  with  what  appears 
to  be  the  ending  of  an  epoch  in  our  economic 
development.  His  career  was  the  embodi- 
ment of  unfettered  individuahsm.  For 
better  or  for  worse — personally  I  believe  for 
better  unless  we  go  too  far  and  too  fast — 
the  people  appear  determined  to  put  Umits 
and  restraints  upon  the  exercise  of  economic 
power  and  overlordship,  just  as  in  former 
days  they  determined  to  put  limits  and 
restraints  upon  the  absolutism  of  rulers. 
Therefore,  I  believe  there  will  be  no  suc- 
cessor to  Mr.  Harriman.  There  will  be  no 
other  career  like  his.  The  romance  of  the 
American  industrial  pioneer  of  that  type 
ends  with  him." 

The  individualism  to  which  I 
adhere,  spells  neither  reaction  nor 
greed,  selfishness,  class  feehng  or 
callousness.  No  less  than  those  who 
carry  their  hearts,  visibly  aching  for 

28 


THE  WAR 

the  people  and  aflame  against  their 
oppressors,  into  magazine  articles, 
political  assemblies  and  upon  lecture 
platforms;  no  less  than  those  who  in 
the  fervor  of  their  world-improving 
pursuit  discover  cure-alls  for  the  ills 
of  humanity  which  they  fondly  be- 
heve  new  and  unfaiHng  remedies  but 
which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  this  old 
globe  of  ours  at  one  time  or  another 
in  one  of  its  parts  or  another,  has 
seen  tried  and  discarded,  after  sad 
disillusionment — no  less  than  they, 
are  we  desirous  for  the  well-being  and 
contentment  of  the  masses  of  the 
people  and  sympathetic  towards  and 
responsive  to  their  aspirations. 

In  common  with  all  right-minded 
and  fair-thinking  men,  be  they  em- 
ployers or  employees,  we  are  ready 
and  glad  to  join  in  every  sincere 
eff'ort,  consistent  with  sane  recogni- 

29 


THE  WAR  AFTER 

tion  of  the  realities  of  things,  to  make 
life  more  worth  living  to  the  rank 
and  file  of  humankind.  So  far  from 
obstructing,  we  will  zealously  and 
earnestly  co-operate  towards  all 
rational  measures,  calculated  to  aug- 
ment the  opportunities  and  happi- 
ness of  the  mass  of  the  people,  to 
enhance  their  share  of  ease  and  com- 
fort and  of  the  rewards  and  joys  of 
life,  and  to  correct  such  shortcomings 
of  the  present  social  order  as  justly 
call  for  reform. 

But  we  will  resolutely  oppose 
those  who  in  their  impatient  grasping 
for  unattainable  perfection  would 
make  of  liberty  a  raging  and  destruc- 
tive torrent  instead  of  a  majestic  and 
fertilizing  stream;  who  out  of  the 
ingredients  of  sentimental  and  emo- 
tional fallacies  mixed  with  the  dele- 
terious substances  of  envy  and  dema- 

30 


THE  WAR 

gogy,  would  concoct  a  fantastic 
political  and  social  system;  who 
ignorantly  and  arrogantly  scorn  the 
beneficent  work  and  the  wise  teach- 
ings of  the  great  architects  of  ordered 
freedom. 

I  suppose  most  of  us  when  we  were 
twenty  knew  of  a  short-cut  to  the 
millennium  and  were  impatient,  re- 
sentful and  rather  contemptuous  of 
those  whose  fossilized  prejudices  or 
selfishness,  as  we  regarded  them, 
prevented  that  short-cut  from  be- 
coming the  high  road  of  humanity. 

Now  that  we  are  older,  though  we 
know  that  our  eyes  will  not  behold 
the  millennium,  we  should  still  like 
the  nearest  possible  approach  to  it, 
but  we  have  learned  that  no  short- 
cut leads  there  and  that  anybody 
who  claims  to  have  found  one  is 
either  an  impostor  or  self-deceived. 

31 


THE  WAR  AFTER 
THE  WAR 

We  have  seen  into  what  an  abyss 
of  despair  and  disgrace  and  suffering 
the  self-constituted  fanatical  or  cor- 
rupt guides  to  the  millennium  have 
plunged  the  people  of  Russia  who 
followed  them  confidingly. 


32 


THE  INCENTIVE 
TO  EFFORT 


IV 

THE  INCENTIVE  TO  EFFORT 

The  individualism  we  believe  in 
gives  incentive  to  every  man  to  put 
forth  his  best  effort,  while  at  the 
same  time  it  recognizes  fully  the 
right  and  the  duty  of  the  State  to 
impose  upon  business  reasonable 
supervision,  restraints,  and  regula- 
tions, to  take  measures  destined  to 
raise  the  general  level  of  popular  well- 
being,  to  protect  particularly  those 
least  able  to  protect  themselves,  to 
prevent  exploitation  and  oppression 
of  the  weak  by  the  strong  and  to 
debar  privilege  and  unfair  or  socially 
harmful  practices. 

And  we  further  believe  that  in 
addition  to,  and  over  and  above  the 

33 


THE  INCENTIVE 

limitations  imposed  by  the  State 
there  are  restraints  which  a  man's 
conscience  should  impose  upon  his 
actions  in  affairs. 

Just  as  we  heed  the  "still  small 
voice"  of  conscience  in  our  personal 
conduct,  so  must  we  harken  to  it  and 
be  controlled  by  it  in  our  relations  to 
Society  and  the  State.  It  is  not 
enough  to  be  "law-honest"  or 
"money-honest,"  and  the  obligation 
to  make  his  actions  square  with  the 
dictates  of  his  "social  conscience" 
increases  in  force  and  extent  in 
proportion  as  a  man's  success  and 
opportunities  increase. 

I  believe  I  am  not  asserting  an 
unjustified  claim  when  I  say  that  the 
recognition  of  the  place  due  to  the 
"social  conscience"  is  getting  to  be 
more  and  more  developed  in  the 
business  community. 

34 


TO  EFFORT 

Few  things  have  brought  more 
harm  upon  the  world  than  attempts, 
well  meant  or  otherwise,  to  force 
mankind  into  ways  of  thought  and 
action  to  which  the  nature  of  the 
average  man  or  woman  does  not 
respond.  I  am  far  from  under- 
valuing the  compelling  impulse  of 
the  call  of  duty,  the  joy  of  service, 
the  selfless  zeal  on  the  high  occasions 
of  life,  but  what  we  are  ordinarily 
dealing  with  are  men's  normal  atti- 
tude, motives  and  reactions  in  the 
affairs  of  the  workaday  world. 

Experience  has  shown  and  com- 
mon sense  observation  confirms  that, 
excepting  such  callings  as  men  take 
up  because  of  an  "inner  urge,"  from 
a  natural  bent  or  altruistic  motives, 
or  because  they  desire  primarily 
position,  public  ofiice,  or  political 
power,  the  vast  majority  of  people 

35 


THE  INCENTIVE 

require,  in  order  to  put  forth  the 
maximum  of  effort  and  of  venturing, 
an  incentive  largely,  though  not 
solely,  of  a  tangible  kind. 

In  an  emergency,  of  course,  at  the 
call  of  the  country,  every  right- 
thinking  man  will  not  only  forget  all 
thought  of  reward,  but  will  be  ready 
for  every  sacrifice.  He  will  work  and 
strive  fully  as  hard  and  far  harder 
than  he  would  for  his  personal 
advantage  and  spend  himself  with- 
out limit,  from  motives  of  patriotism 
or  public  spirit. 

But  under  normal  conditions  other 
incentives  are  needed.  And  it  must 
not  be  forgotten  that  legitimate  in- 
dividual achievement,  however  gain- 
ful to  the  person  concerned,  means 
in  the  last  analysis  the  creation  of 
assets,  tangible  or  otherwise,  the 
resultants    from    which    in    various 

36 


TO  EFFORT 

ways  redound  to  much  the  greater 
extent  to  the  benefit  and  advantage 
of  the  community  as  a  whole. 

Just  as  punishment  is  meant  as  a 
deterrent  and  a  corrective,  so  indi- 
vidual reward  is  primarily  intended 
as  a  stimulant  and  for  social  utility. 
It  is  bestowed  not  from  tender 
solicitude  for  the  recipient,  but  be- 
cause of  the  recognition  that  the 
exercise  of  his  faculties  is  of  advan- 
tage to  the  community. 

The  result  aimed  at  and  effectively 
achieved  is  to  stimulate  the  energies 
required  for  the  world's  work  and 
progress  and  to  enhance  the  scope  of 
activity  of  those  who  are  endowed 
above  the^average  with  the  capacities 
for  producing  or  directing  and  to 
make  that  scope  as  near  as  may  be 
proportionate  to  those  capacities. 

The   opposite    way,    that    is    the 

37 


THE  INCENTIVE 

communistic  method,  the  system  of 
common  property,  of  an  equal  task 
and  equal  reward  for  all  alike,  has 
been  tried  over  and  over  again,  and 
has  failed  invariably. 

I  am  far  from  saying  that  material 
reward  is  the  only  incentive  to 
business  effort.  The  prospect  of  and 
ambition  for  attaining  reputation, 
standing,  influence,  the  desire  to  be 
of  usefulness  and  service,  the  zest  of 
work  and  strife,  the  joy  of  creative 
effort,  the  fascination  of  matching 
one's  qualities  of  mind  and  character 
against  those  of  others,  count  for 
much,  but  amongst  the  conglomerate 
of  impulses  which  make  men  dare 
and  plan  and  work  to  their  utmost 
capacity,  the  hope  of  attaining 
material  success  is  still  one  of  the 
most  effective.  Nor  is  this  wholly,  or 
even  mainly,  a  materialistic  impulse. 

38 


TO  EFFORT 

Individualism  frankly  denies  that 
the  world  can  be  run  on  a  theory 
which  presupposes  the  existence  of 
mental,  moral  and  physical  equality 
between  men.  Equality  before  the 
law,  equality  of  political  rights  — 
yes,  equality  of  opportunity,  as  far  as 
humanly  possible  —  yes.  But,  an 
inscrutable  Providence  has  bestowed 
upon  His  creatures,  animate  as  well 
as  inanimate,  inequality  of  natural 
endowment,  and  from  that  springs 
and  must  necessarily  spring  inequal- 
ity of  results. 

Abstract  justice  is  not  in  the 
eternal  scheme  of  things. 

Why  do  some  trees  grow  straight 
and  magnificent,  and  others  wither 
or  are  stunted?  Why  are  some  peo- 
ple born  with  vigorous  constitutions 
or  with  conspicuous  talents  and 
others  not?     Why  is  Caruso  gifted 

39 


THE  INCENTIVE 

with  a  voice  which  enables  him  to 
make  as  much  money  in  one  evening 
as  the  average  artist  gets  for  a  year's 
work.  Why  do  people  willingly  pay 
$10,000  or  more  to  have  a  portrait 
painted  by  Sargent,  when  Tom 
Smith  would  gladly  accept  $100  for 
making  their  picture?  Why  are 
some  people  endowed  with  the  privi- 
lege of  understanding  and  appreciat- 
ing art  and  deriving  a  wealth  of  joy, 
recreation  and  inspiration  from  it — 
a  privilege  which  I  personally  would 
not  exchange  for  any  amount  of 
money — and  many  others  not? 
A  lady  said  to  me  the  other  day: 

"It  makes  me  angry  that  Mr.  X  should 
live  in  that  splendid  house,  whilst  I  have 
only  a  simple  flat.  Such  inequalities  ought 
not  to  be  allowed.  It  is  not  fair  that  he 
should  be  thus  favored." 

I  answered: 

"Is  it  fair  that  you  happen  to  be  good  to 
look  upon  and  bright  and  attractive  to  talk 

40 


TO  EFFORT 

to  (which  she  was),  whilst  some  others  of 
your  sex,  pardon  the  ungallant  observation, 
are  plain  or  dull?  Because  of  this  gross 
inequality,  galling  as  it  must  be  to  some  of 
those  less  favored,  do  you  think  there  should 
be  a  law  providing  that  all  women  must  go 
veiled  and  have  other  appropriate  restraints 
put  upon  the  power  of  their  attractiveness? 

"Do  you  realize  that  if  all  incomes  above 
$100,000  were  confiscated,  as  has  been 
urged  by  some,  and  which  in  your  present 
frame  of  mind  you  would  presumably 
favor,  the  resulting  sum  would  barely  cover 
our  war  expenditures  for  one  month? 

"Do  you  know  that  if  all  incomes  above 
even  $10,000  were  taken  and  distributed 
amongst  those  earning  less  than  $10,000,  the 
result,  as  far  as  I  can  figure  out,  would  be 
that  the  aggregate  income  of  those  receiving 
that  distribution  would  be  increased  barely 
ten  per  cent.?" 

I  used  various  other  arguments 
and  examples,  not  without  interrup- 
tion and  rejoinder  on  her  part.  I  do 
not  flatter  myself  that  I  succeeded 
in  converting  her,  but  I  beheve  when 
we  parted  she  was  a  little  less  sure 

41 


THE  INCENTIVE 

than  before  that  Mr.  X  ought  to  be 
turned  out  of  his  fine  house  forth- 
with. 

The  sound  common  sense  of  the 
plain  people,  healthily  skeptical  of 
the  fancies  and  theories  of  "advanced 
thinkers"  or  the  catch-phrases  of 
agitators,  may  be  trusted  fortunately 
to  look  through  the  folly  of  attempt- 
ing to  force  into  a  mold  of  equality 
that  which  nature  has  not  created 
equal. 

Watch  a  gang  of  laborers  at  work 
and  see  with  what  lack  of  ceremony 
the  foreman  deals  with  the  subject  of 
abstract  "equality." 

The  "directive  faculty,"  the  qual- 
ity of  leadership  in  thought  and 
action  is  not  only  one  absolutely 
needful  in  all  organized  undertakings, 
great  or  small,  but  it  becomes  in- 
creasingly  rare    and,    consequently, 

42 


TO  EFFORT 

increasingly  more  valuable  as  the 
object  to  which  it  addresses  itself 
increases  in  size,  complexity  and 
difficulty. 

How  much  in  dollars  and  cents, 
not  to  mention  in  comfort,  enjoy- 
ment and  contentment,  is  it  worth 
to  the  people  that  Mr.  Ford's  "direc- 
tive faculty"  in  organizing  and  manu- 
facturing has  brought  the  auto- 
mobile within  reach  of  those  with 
modest  incomes  .i^ 

Even  Lenine,  that  sinister  arch- 
apostle  of  enforced  equality  geared 
to  the  standard  of  the  lowest  level  of 
class  selfishness,  made  the  following 
admission  in  an  official  pronounce- 
ment to  his  followers,  in  April  last, 
embodying  one  of  the  lessons  which 
he  has  learned  in  the  sixth  month  of 
his  disastrous  and  blood-stained  rule : 
"We  must  purchase  the  services  of  a 

43 


THE  INCENTIVE 

thousand  first  class  scientists,  spe- 
cialists and  managers,  and  even 
though  we  pay  each  of  these  capital- 
ist stars  25,000,  50,000  or  even 
100,000  rubles  a  year,  they  will  be 
cheap  at  that  price." 

I  have  complete  confidence  in  the 
sober  common  sense  of  the  American 
people.  I  believe  that  when  they 
have  been  placed  in  possession  of 
adequate  information,  when  the  pros 
and  cons  of  a  proposition  have  been 
fully  discussed  before  them  and  by 
them,  they  can  always  be  relied  upon 
to  reach  sound  conclusions.  I  am 
convinced  that,  while  earnestly  and 
determinedly  contending  for  social 
justice  and  progress  and  the  greatest 
attainable  diffusion  of  well-being, 
contentment  and  opportunity,  they 
are  not  prepared  to  abandon  the 
principles  and  underlying  features  of 

44 


TO  EFFORT 

a  governmental  and  social  system 
which  has  created  out  of  the  hetero- 
geneous elements  of  our  population 
a  strong  and  great,  self-reliant  and 
enterprising  race  and  procured  for 
the  people  prosperity  and  other 
advantages  superior  on  the  whole  to 
those  possessed  by  any  other  nation. 
They  will  not,  I  feel  assured,  per- 
mit Americanism  to  be  adulterated 
by  a  spirit  or  by  methods  having 
kinship  to  either  world-destructive 
Prussianism  or  self-destructive  Rus- 
sianism.  They  will  not,  I  am  certain, 
cast  aside  knowingly  the  theories  and 
principles  of  institutions  which  we 
inherited  from  the  wisest  and  most 
enlightened  body  of  men  that  ever 
met  in  deliberative  assembly  and 
which  are  the  envy  and  admiration 
of  the  world,  in  exchange  for  a 
regime  of  bureaucracy,  paternalism, 

45 


THE  INCENTIVE 

socialism  or  bolshevism. 

And  these  institutions,  the  most 
perfect  embodiment  ever  conceived 
of  a  true  and  workable  democracy, 
are  based  upon  the  great  principle  of 
individualism  because  the  illustrious 
men  who  framed  our  fundamental 
instrument  of  government  were  led 
by  a, deep  insight  into  and  a  wonder- 
fully sagacious  recognition  of  the 
trend  of  human  affairs  and  the 
springs  of  human  actions. 

They  indeed  made  America  "safe 
for  democracy."  Let  us  beware  lest 
in  aiming  "to  make  the  world  safe  for 
democracy"  we  permit  the  safety  of 
democracy  in  our  own  land  to  be 
jeopardized  by  having  the  founda- 
tions tampered  with  on  which  it  has 
rested  for  a  century  and  a  half.  By 
all  means,  let  us  be  open  to  new  ideas, 
let  us  go  forward  and  strive  to  realize 

46 


TO  EFFORT 

what  formerly  ^ye^e  considered  un- 
attainable ideals,  but  in  boldly  ven- 
turing forth  upon  uncharted  waters 
do  not  let  us  throw  overboard  the 
compass  of  immutable  principles. 


47 


THE  MENACE 


V 


THE  MENACE 

The  menace  which  I  see  is  not  in 
the  dehberate  will  of  the  people,  but 
in  the  fact  that  under  the  emotional 
stress  of  war,  under  the  patriotic 
impulse  of  the  time,  under  the  actual 
or  fancied  necessity  of  the  war  situa- 
tion tendencies  are  tolerated  and 
modes  of  thought  and  action  per- 
mitted to  gain  a  footing  unopposed, 
which  are  apt  to  create  very  serious 
problems  upon  the  return  of  normal 
conditions. 

That  menace  is  aggravated  by  the 
fact  that  from  a  thoroughly  laudable 
and  patriotic  desire  to  sustain  the 
Nation's  spokesman  and  chosen 
leader   in   the   formidable   difficulty 

48 


THE  MENACE 

and  responsibility  of  his  task  of 
conducting  the  war,  we  are  all  re- 
luctant to  raise  controversies,  and 
most  of  us  would  rather  sw  allow  our 
convictions  in  silence,  at  whatever 
discomfort  to  our  mental  digestive 
apparatus,  than  place  ourselves  in 
the  position  where  our  patriotism 
may  be  doubted  or  our  motives  sus- 
pected to  be  those  of  a  selfish  concern 
for  our  individual  or  class  interests, 
in  a  time  when  selfishness  is  almost 
treasonable. 

In  what  I  am  going  to  say  I  wish 
very  distinctly  and  earnestly  to  dis- 
claim any  intention  of  criticising  our 
present  Government.  It  would  be 
most  unbecoming  and  improper  to 
do  so  before  this  non-partisan  gather- 
ing in  which  politics  can  have  no 
place. 

What  I  mean  to  bring  out  is  not 

49 


THE  MENACE 

any  sins  of  omission  or  commission  of 
the  present  Administration,  but  un- 
avoidable frailties  and  shortcomings 
which  are  inherent  in  the  very 
essence  of  all  government  and  which 
emphasize  the  need,  particularly  in  a 
democracy,  of  confining  the  business 
functions  of  government  to  activities 
which  private  enterprise  cannot  un- 
dertake equally  as  well  as  or  better 
than  the  State,  or  which,  in  the  inter- 
est of  the  maintenance  of  free  institu- 
tions, private  enterprise  ought  not 
to  be  permitted  to  undertake. 

Liberty  necessarily  limits  govern- 
mental efficiency.  That  is  part  of 
the  price  which  we  pay  for  freedom. 
We  do  not  begrudge  the  price.  We 
are  prepared  to  pay  any  price  for  the 
supreme  blessing  of  being  free  men — 
if  necessary,  even  the  price  of  our 
lives,    as   many   of  those   did   who 

50 


THE  MENACE 

procured  for  us  the  great  legacy  of 
liberty.  But  why  unnecessarily  bid 
up  the  price  against  ourselves  by 
extending  the  scope  of  governmental 
activities  beyond  the  field  which 
naturally  belongs  to  them? 

Government,  in  its  very  essence,  is 
the  negation  of  competition.  It  is, 
by  the  very  fact  of  its  being,  what- 
ever its  name  or  kind,  the  monopoly 
of  monopolies.  It  cannot  but  be 
affected  with  those  shortcomings 
which  spring  from  the  absence  of 
competition  and  the  exercise  of 
monopoly. 

Why,  then  should  a  people  which 
rightly  discountenances  monopoly 
and  rightly  beheves  in  the  prin- 
ciples of  competition,  enlarge  the 
operations  of  governmental  agen- 
cies further  than  is  required  for 
the    recognized    purposes    which    a 

51 


THE  MENACE 

free  government  is  meant  to  serve? 

In  saying  this,  I  do  not  fail  to 
recognize  that  certainly  during  the 
period  of  reconstruction,  and  prob- 
ably more  or  less  permanently,  both 
here  and  in  Europe,  the  scope  of 
State  activities  is  bound  to  increase 
and  must  concern  itself  with,  and 
intercede  in,  matters  which  hereto- 
fore were  left  entirely  to  private 
enterprise. 

But  this  concern  and  intercession 
should  be  such  as  not  to  eliminate, 
or  lame,  private  enterprise,  but  to 
make  it  more  effective.  In  this 
respect  we  might  learn  from  the 
enemy  through  a  careful  study  of  the 
methods  followed  in  Germany  before 
the  war,  some  of  which  are  worthy  of 
adaptation  whilst  others  must  be 
rejected  as  being  in  contrast  with  our 
conception  of  right  and  morality. 


THE  MENACE 

Nor  do  I  fail  to  recognize,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  I  welcome  unreservedly 
— as  I  am  sure  we  all  do —  the 
prospect  that  in  the  times  which  will 
follow  the  profound  upheaval  of  the 
war,  the  standard  by  which  men  will 
be  judged  and  rewarded  will  be, 
more  strictly,  exactingly  and  far- 
reachingly  than  heretofore,  that  of 
work  done,  duty  performed,  service 
rendered.  The  w^orld  will  have  no 
place  for  idlers  and  social  slackers. 
Rank  will  reside  not  in  birth  or 
wealth — neither,  I  trust,  w  ill  it  reside 
in  an  office  holding  caste — but  in 
useful  achievement. 

The  tremendous  event  of  the  war 
will  not  leave  the  world  as  it  found  it. 
It  will  never  be  quite  the  same  again. 
To  the  extent  that  social  and  eco- 
nomic institutions,  however  deep  and 
ancient  their  roots,  may  be  found  to 

33 


THE  MENACE 

stand  in  the  way  of  the  highest 
achievable  level  of  social  justice  and 
the  widest  attainable  extension  of 
opportunity,  welfare  and  content- 
ment, they  will  have  to  submit  to 
change.  And  the  less  obstructive 
and  stubborn,  the  more  broadminded, 
co-operative  and  disinterested  those 
who  pre-eminently  prospered  under 
the  old  conditions  will  prove  them- 
selves in  meeting  the  spirit  of  the 
new  day  and  the  reforms  which  it 
may  justly  call  for,  the  better  it  will 
be  both  for  them  and  for  the  com- 
munity at  large. 


54 


SOCIALISM 


VI 

SOCIALISM 

All  extremes  meet,  as  the  French 
saying  is.  From  governmental  pater- 
nalism to  socialism  is  not  a  very  long 
step.  To  enter  into  a  discussion  of 
the  fallacies  of  sociahsm  or  of  its 
limited  form,  known  as  state  social- 
ism, would  take  far  more  time  than 
even  your  kindly  indulgence  would 
grant  me.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the 
discoverer  of  the  socialistic  creed  was 
a  German  and  that  it  beau's  all  the 
earmarks  of  the  German  passion  for 
cataloguing  and  scheduling  and 
ordering  men  and  things  in  a  rigid 
and  cast-iron  way. 

It  is  characteristic  of  the  German 
trait  of  looking  upon  human  beings 

55 


SOCIALISM 

mainly  as  state  material,  of  failing 
to  appreciate  and  respect  the  passion 
for  freedom  among  men  and  nations, 
and  of  the  German's  fundamental 
lack  of  enlightened  insight  into  the 
currents  of  human  nature,  especially 
non-German  human  nature — which 
national  defects  are  amongst  the 
principal  actuating  causes  that  led 
Germany  to  look  upon  this  war  as  a 
winning  venture  instead  of  recogniz- 
ing it  as  the  colossal  crime  which  it  is 
and  the  equally  colossal  folly  which 
it  was  bound  to  be  for  Germany  in 
its  ultimate  consequences  even  if  it 
ended  in  victory  instead  of,  as  it  will, 
in  defeat. 

It  would  be  futile  to  deny  that 
some  of  the  credit  for  the  advance 
which  has  been  made  in  the  last  half 
century,  through  legislation  or  other- 
wise, towards  social  justice  and  to- 

56 


SOCIALISM 

wards  the  amelioration  of  conditions 
which  the  conscience  of  the  ^Yo^!d 
ought  never  to  have  tolerated,  be- 
longs to  socialist  suggestion  and 
agitation. 

To  the  extent  that  aims  and 
measures  advocated  by  Socialism 
may  still  be  found  to  make  for  the 
promotion  of  public  welfare  as  dis- 
tinguished from  selfish  and  narrow 
and  ill-conceived  class  interest,  they 
will  not  fail  to  achieve  recognition. 
It  would  be  equally  futile  to  shut  our 
eyes  to  the  fact  that  not  a  few  of  the 
dangerous  and  insidious  fallacies  of 
Socialism  have  taken  root  amongst 
sections  of  the  American  people, 
which  are  far  from  subscribing  to  its 
program  as  a  whole. 

These  fallacies  present  an  issue 
which  will  have  to  be  squarely  met 
and    I    beheve   can   be   successfully 

57 


SOCIALISM 

met,  as  the  kindred  fallacy  of  free 
silver  was  squarely  and  successfully 
met. 

But  I  see  all  the  less  reason  for 
testing  your  patience  with  a  general 
discussion  of  Socialism,  as  I  am  con- 
vinced that  we  are  not  now  con- 
fronted with  the  serious  possibility 
of  the  approval  by  the  American 
people  of  the  tenets  and  the  program 
of  regular  Socialism,  as  expounded 
by  its  recognized  leaders  whom  the 
test  of  war  has  exposed  as  utterly 
un-American,  to  say  the  least. 

It  is  true  that  a  good  many — 
indeed  too  many — of  the  fraternity 
of  "intellectuals"  for  a  variety  of 
reasons,  some  deserving  of  respect 
and  some  less  so,  are  flirting  with  or 
have  succumbed  to  Socialism,  and 
that  too  many  of  our  youth  in 
institutions    of   learning    have    sur- 

58 


SOCIALISM 

rendered  to  its  seductive  appearance, 
but  tha  bulk  of  our  people  recoil 
from  it  and  the  large  majority  of 
those  composing  our  labor  unions, 
under  the  leadership  of  Mr.  Gompers, 
have  recognized  it  for  the  outlandish 
thing  it  is  and  have  rejected  its 
blandishments.  As  Mr.  Gompers 
finely  said  in  one  of  his  speeches  a 
number  of  years  ago : 

"I  want  to  tell  you  Socialists  that  I  have 
studied  your  philosophy;  read  your  works 
upon  economics,  and  not  the  meanest  of 
them;  studied  your  standard  works  both  in 
EngUsh  and  German — have  not  only  read, 
but  studied  them.  I  have  heard  your 
orators  and  watched  the  work  of  your 
movement  the  world  over.  I  have  kept 
close  watch  upon  your  doctrines  for  thirty 
years;  have  been  closely  associated  with 
many  of  you,  and  know  how  you  think  and 
what  you  propose.  I  know,  too,  what  you 
have  up  your  sleeve.  And  I  want  to  say 
that  I  am  entirely  at  variance  with  your 
philosophy.     I  declare  it  to  you,  I  am  not 

59 


SOCIALISM 

only  at  variance  with  your  doctrines  but 
with  your  philosophy. 

Economically,  you  are  unsound;  socially, 
you  are  wrong;  industrially,  you  are  an 
impossibility.     .     .     ." 

No  lightning  will  come,  I  believe, 
out  of  the  thundercloud  of  real 
Sociahsm,  for  the  present. 


60 


PA  TERNALISM 


VII 

PATERNALISM 

The  menace,  however,  of  bureau- 
cratism and  semi-socialistic  paternal- 
ism with  their  insidious  effect  upon 
the  very  fibre  and  marrow  of  the  race, 
confronts  us  now,  and  it  is  none  too 
early,  even  in  the  midst  of  the  all- 
absorbing  drama  of  war,  for  business 
men  to  take  a  stand  against  their 
perpetuation  in  times  of  peace. 

Our  British  business  comrades 
have  pointed  the  way.  Let  me  quote 
the  following  passages  from  a  public 
pronouncement  recently  issued  in 
London : 

"The  sure  and  certain  result  of  the  present 
policy,  if  persisted  in,  will  be  neither  more 
nor  less  than  the  utter  ruin  of  the  established 

61 


PATERNALISM 

business  of  a  vwy  considerable  section  of  the 
community,  a  section  noted  for  its  energy 
and  enterprise,  and  the  jeopardizing  of  our 
whole  foreign  commerce  by  the  deliberate 
scrapping  of  the  organizations  of  proved 
efficiency  and  adaptability  through  which  it 
has  hitherto  been  conducted,  and  the  sub- 
stitution for  these  of  an  immense  bureau- 
cratic organization,  which  will  certainly  kill 
all  individual  initiative  and  enterprise 

"The  Iron,  Steel,  Tinplate,  and  Metal 
Merchants  of  this  country,  recognizing  the 
serious  state  into  which  the  nation's  trade  is 
surely  drifting,  have  formed  themselves  into 
a  Federation,  .  .  .  They  invite  the  other 
classes  of  the  merchant  trading  community 
to  form  similar  federations  with  the  same 
objects 

"They  consider  that  these  Government 
departments,  which  were  set  up  for  war 
conditions  only  (and  which  would  not  other- 
wise have  been  tolerated  for  a  week),  desire, 
if  possible,  to  perpetuate  their  existence,  and 
if  they  are  allowed  to  have  their  way  now 
they  will  wreck  the  whole  system  upon  which 
our  world-wide  trade  has  been  built  up  and 
established." 

It  may  be  stated  as  an  axiom  that 

62 


PATERNALISM 

while  bureaucracy  and  efficiency  may 
go  together  under  an  autocratic 
regime,  it  is  impossible  in  the  very 
nature  of  things  for  bureaucracy  to 
go  together  with  efficiency  in  a 
democracy.  Nor,  indeed,  can  pater- 
nalism and  hberty  exist  side  by  side. 

"But  how  do  you  reconcile,"  I  may 
be  asked,  "tliis  statement  with  what 
you  said  a  little  while  ago  about  the 
marvelous  efficiency  of  our  demo- 
cratic army?" 

My  answer  is  that  the  efficiency  of 
the  army  is  not  a  contradiction  of, 
but  a  confirmation  of  my  thesis, 
because  the  army  in  w  ar  times  is  and 
must  be  organized  and  administered 
upon  an  autocratic  basis.  Obedience, 
discipline,  esprit  de  corps,  unques- 
tioning submission  to  established 
authority,  complete  merging  of  self 
in  the  task  on  hand  are  of  its  very 

63 


PATERNALISM 

essence.  Promotion  is  according  to 
merit,  selection  according  to  quali- 
fications, political  pull  and  interfer- 
ence are  conspicuous  by  their  absence. 
Were  these  things  not  so,  the  army 
could  achieve  little,  whatever  the 
bravery  of  all  ranks. 

Will  any  one  say  that  this  is  a 
picture  of  the  habitual  frame  of 
mind  and  disposition  of  our  civilian 
population  or  of  the  practices  of 
our  Government,  Democratic  or 
Republican,  in  ordinary  times.^^ 

We  all  know  it  is  not,  and  it  never 
will  be  a  life-like  picture  of  us  in  our 
normal  state.  "Never"  is  a  big 
word,  but  if  the  experience  of  many 
centuries  may  be  taken  as  a  guide,  it 
may  safely  be  applied  to  certain 
essential  qualities  of  human  nature, 
excepting  temporary  conditions  when, 
under  the  impulse  of  a  great  emer- 

64 


PATERNALISM 

gency,  the  floodgates  of  what  is 
highest  and  noblest  in  man  are 
opened  and  the  mighty  current  car- 
ries us  along  to  regions  not  ordinarily 
within  our  power  to  attain. 

What  are  the  elements  which  com- 
pose our  governmental  agencies — 
executive,  legislative  and  adminis- 
trative— including  those  instruments 
of  government  which  of  late  years 
have  become  more  and  more  numer- 
ous and  important,  i.  e..  Commis- 
sions and  Boards? 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  wish  to  reflect 
upon  the  ability,  the  character  and 
the  motives  of  our  public  servants  in 
general.  Indeed  it  is  my  conviction 
that,  generally  speaking,  their  stan- 
dard of  capacity,  industry,  devotion 
to  duty  and  conscientious  effort  to 
seek  the  right  and  to  promote  the 
people's   welfare   is   deserving   of  a 

65 


PA  TERNALISM 

good  deal  more  recognition  than  is 
usually  accorded  to  it. 

But,  surely,  no  candid  estimate 
would  claim,  that  acquaintance  with, 
and  experience  in,  handhng  large 
business  affairs — let  alone  interna- 
tional business  affairs — are  prevalent 
in  normal  times  among  those  in 
executive,  legislative  and  adminis- 
trative positions  in  our  country. 

Now,  you  and  I,  who  are  trained 
in  business,  have  all  we  can  do  to 
conduct  our  respective  concerns  and 
personal  affairs  with  a  fair  measure 
of  success.  On  what  ground,  then, 
can  it  be  assumed  that  by  becoming 
endowed  with  the  dignity  of  a  gov- 
ernmental appointment,  men  of  aver- 
age or  even  much  more  than  average 
ability  will  develop  the  capacity  to 
run  successfully  the  huge  and  com- 
plex business  undertakings  which  the 

66 


PATERNALISM 

devotees  of  paternalism  would  place 
in  their  charge? 

I  know,  of  course,  the  arguments 
of  the  preachers  and  prophets  of 
governmental  assumption  of  divers 
functions  heretofore  belonging  to 
private  enterprise.  I  know  their 
denunciation  of  what  they  consider 
the  selfishness,  the  greed,  the  oppres- 
sion, the  economic  waste  and  social 
injustice  of  the  established  order  of 
business,  and  the  sweeping  conclu- 
sions they  draw  from  the  scandals  or 
abuses  which,  from  time  to  time,  in 
sporadic  cases,  have  unfortunately 
demeaned  the  conduct  of  such 
business. 

But  granting  some,  granting,  for 
argument's  sake,  many  or  even  all  of 
their  allegations,  would  a  regime  of 
paternalism  and  bureaucracy  afford 
theremedy.f^    Do  they  find  support  in 

67 


PATERNALISM 

history,  ancient  and  modern,  for 
their  plea?  Have  our  city  adminis- 
trations, for  instance  (and  to  run  a 
city  is  essentially  little  different  from 
running  a  business  organization)  been 
such  as  to  show  superiority  over,  or 
equality  with,  private  enterprise? 
Has  the  management  of  our  postal 
department,  which  is  purely  a  busi- 
ness proposition  and  an  easy  one  at 
that?  Is  it  conceivable  that  an  army 
of  Government  clerks  such  as  a 
bureaucracy  would  have  to  create, 
with  its  deadening  routine  and  its 
absence  of  incentive,  could  come 
anywhere  near  equalling  in  efficiency 
and  initiative  the  private  employees 
stimulated  by  the  inevitable  and 
never-ceasing  search  and  demand 
for  capable  men  which  is  bound 
to  bring  the  ablest  to  the  top  in 
private  business  and  to  reward  them 

68 


PATERNALISM 

with    position    and    compensation  ? 

Has  our  civil  service  brought  men 
to  cabinet  or  other  leading  positions 
as  the  great  majority  of  our  leading 
men  in  business  have  risen  from  the 
ranks? 

Has  the  State  anywhere  or  at  any 
time  produced  results  comparable 
with  the  best  of  those  produced  by 
private  effort,  taking  into  account 
both  efficiency  and  economy?  Have 
its  officials  shown  themselves  amen- 
able to  new  ideas?  Have  they  en- 
couraged or  even  recognized  new 
inventions?  Have  they  fostered 
initiative? 

I  do  not  wish  to  weary  you  with  a 
string  of  similar  questions  which 
could  be  prolonged  to  almost  infinite 
length,  and  the  answer  to  all  of 
which  is  emphatically  "No." 

Bureaucracy    is    either    wasteful, 

69 


PATERNALISM 

stagnant  and  inefficient  or,  when  it  is 
efficient,  as  in  Germany,  ruthless  in 
its  methods,  obnoxious  in  its  spirit, 
and  morally  poisonous  in  its  ejDfect. 
Bureaucracy  resents  progress,  vision 
and  innovation  because  these  are 
disturbing  and  antagonistic  to  the 
very  essence  of  its  being — routine. 

An  English  writer  has  pointed  out 
the  characteristic  fact  that  Columbus 
was  disbelieved,  turned  down  and 
sneered  at  by  all  the  bureaucracy  of 
his  day  and  country,  and  that  it  was 
two  private  patrons  who  enabled 
him  to  realize  his  vision.  Bureau- 
cracy has  hardly  changed  since  then 
in  its  essentials. 

In  our  own  case  the  soil  for  the 
growth  of  the  noxious  weeds  which 
spring  from  the  seed  of  bureaucracy 
is  particularly  fertile,  for  a  variety 
of  reasons.    One  of  them  consists  in 

70 


PATERNALISM 

the  fact  that  our  capital  city  is  not, 
as  are  the  other  principal  capitals  of 
the  Avorld,  a  great  commercial  city, 
but  is  located  on  a  back-w  ater,  so  to 
spcEik,  away  from  the  great  and  fast 
flowing  currents  of  commerce  and 
industry  and  their  attendant  activi- 
ties, and  out  of  contact  with  the 
doers  of  things. 

The  result  is  that  Washington  is 
heavy  with  the  atmosphere  of  poli- 
tics and  pervaded,  as  no  other 
capital  I  know,  with  the  spirit  and 
the  very  odor  of  things  govern- 
mental. We  are  all  more  or  less 
creatures  of  our  surroundings,  and 
instances  will  occur  to  most  of  you 
of  the  changes  which  the  atmosphere 
of  Washington  has  wrought  upon 
men  whose  mental  processes  and 
tendencies  of  thought  and  action  we 
thought  we   knew   thoroughly   well 

71 


PATERNALISM 

and  whom  we  believed  proof  against 
such  influences. 

Another  thing,  more  or  less  pecu- 
har  to  our  political  ways  and  fatal 
to  the  attainment  of  governmental 
efficiency  of  a  high  order,  is  the 
custom  I  of  changing  officials  with  a 
change  of  administration.  Of  course, 
a  great  many  Government  employees 
are  protected  in  their  tenure  by  civil 
service  rules,  but  a  considerable 
number — and  those  the  most  im- 
portant ones — are  not. 

Moreover,  because  of  the  lack  of 
scope  for  their  ambitions,  the  in- 
sufficiency of  material  incentive,  the 
vexations  of  red  tape  and  because  of 
sundry  other  reasons,  it  is  a 
well-known  fact  that,  generally 
speaking,  except  in  the  army  and 
navy,  many  of  the  best  men  do  not 
remain  in  the  Government's  service 

72 


PATERNALISM 

for  any  great  length  of  time,  while 
the  less  competent,  and  particularly 
the  least  competent  ones,  hang  on 
forever,  snugly  fixed  in  a  govern- 
mental berth. 

It  is  precisely  the  reverse  of  the 
ways  of  private  business,  these  ways 
being  continuity  of  direction  and 
policy,  incentive  and  reward  and 
permanency  of  tenure  for  the  man  of 
ability,  and  weeding  out  of  the  in- 
competent ones. 

A  characteristic  instance  of  the 
protean  changeableness  of  govern- 
mental bodies  is  afforded  by  the 
Federal  Trade  Commission.  This 
institution,  which  was  created  but 
four  years  ago,  is  charged  with 
functions  for  the  effective  fulfill- 
ment of  which  stability  of  personnel 
and  consistency  of  pohcy  and  pro- 
gram are  absolutely  essential. 

73 


PATERNALISM 

Yet,  not  a  single  one  of  the  original 
appointees  remains  today  on  the 
Commission.  Its  pohcy,  methods 
and  conceptions  have  been  utterly 
and  radically  reversed  in  the  space 
of  a  few  years.  Under  its  original 
chairman,  it  had  the  confidence, 
good-will  and  respectful  following  of 
the  business  community  in  its  con- 
structive and  helpful  work. 

What  the  sentiments  of  the  busi- 
ness community  are,  in  respect  of  the 
activities  and  the  personnel  of  the 
Commission  as  now  constituted,  is 
plainly  set  forth  in  the  recent  mem- 
orandum on  this  subject  addressed  to 
President  Wilson  by  the  Chamber  of 
Commerce  of  the  United  States. 

An  American  bureaucracy,  if  pater- 
nalism were  to  be  permitted  to  strike 
root  in  our  country,  having  the 
center  of  its  being  in  Washington, 

74 


PATERNALISM 

would  be  apt,  therefore,  to  become  a 
most  characteristic  sample  of  the 
foibles,  defects  and  drawbacks  which 
the  bureaucratic  species  is  heir  to. 
Even  under  existing  conditions, 
with  the  quickening  effect  of  war 
upon  administrative  activity,  the 
time  and  effort  spent  by  business 
men  in  travelhng  to  what  for  the 
present  has  become  the  center  of 
all  dispensations  —  Washington, — 
in  hanging  around  departmental 
bureaus,  seeking  the  man  or  the 
committee  authorized  to  make  deci- 
sions, trying  to  get  attention  and 
action,  and  so  forth — amounts  to  an 
appaUing  total  of  lost  energy.  A 
recently  pubHshed  report  by  one  of 
the  Senate  committees  contains  the 
following  passages,  descriptive  of  the 
workings  of  bureaucracy : 

75 


PATERNALISM 

".  .  .  .  functions,  ill-defined,  conflicted 
with  or  overlapped  each  other.  Contractors, 
inventors,  material  men,  every  one  having 
business,  ....  directed  from  one  official 
to  the  other,  could  not  well  transact  their 
business  and  secure  results  with  directness 
and  efficiency.  While  this  condition  seems  to 
be  inseparable  from  official  business  routine 
in  Washington,  etc " 

As  bearing  upon  the  question  of 
transferring  business  functions  from 
private  control  to  Government  con- 
trol, I  need  hardly  enter  into  the 
subject  of  the  vastly  increased  cost 
which  such  a  transfer  would  involve, 
because  governmental  extravagance 
and  costliness  of  method  have  be- 
come proverbial. 

It  was  Senator  Aldrich — a  man  in 
the  habit  of  weighing  his  words — 
who  said,  on  the  strength  of  many 
years'  experience  with,  and  observa- 
tions of,  public  affairs,  that  if  our 
governmental  expenditures  could  be 

76 


PATERNALISM 


administered  on  the  principles  and 
methods  prevaiHng  in  private  busi- 
ness, the  cost  to  the  people  could  be 
reduced  by  two  hundred  million 
dollars  per  year.  Bear  in  mind  that 
this  was  said  at  a  time  when  our 
expenditures  were  normal,  and  then 
apply  it  to  expenditures  immensely 
enlarged. 


77 


THE  NEED  FOR 


VIII 


THE  NEED  FOR  SOBER  REASONING 

To  win  the  war  and  to  deal  with 
the  problems  incident  to,  and  result- 
ing from  it,  bravery  and  patriotic 
devotion  alone  are  not  sufficient. 
Reason  must  check  emotion,  reflec- 
tion must  curb  impulse.  Sober  and 
earnest  thought  is  called  for  and  the 
moral  courage  to  speak  one's  con- 
victions, with  the  sole  limitation 
that  they  must  be  the  convictions  of 
a  loyal  American  and  not  such  as  are 
calculated  when  uttered  to  give  aid 
and  comfort  to  the  enemy  and  as 
tend  to  weaken  the  nation's  war 
effort  and  determination  to  achieve 
complete  victory. 

It  is  easy  to  float  with  the  prevail- 

78 


SOBER  REASONING 

ing  surface  currents  of  the  day,  and 
tempting  to  attune  one's  utterances 
to  sentiments  which  are  sure  to  meet 
with  popular  applause.  But  the 
value  of  an  exchange  of  views  lies  in 
the  difference  of  views  honestly  held 
and  presented.  It  is  through  free 
discussion,  through  the  meeting  of 
conflicting  opinions  in  the  public 
forum,  that  the  truth  is  sought  and 
ascertained  in  a  repubhc. 

And  Truth  is  a  stubborn  and  exact- 
ing thing.  She  will  respond  neither 
to  the  stormy  wooing  of  the  visionary 
nor  to  the  more  subdued  call  of 
selfishness. 

We  business  men  shall  not  be 
accused  of  following  visionary  aims. 
Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  are  we  any 
more  selfish  than  is  inherent  in  the 
imperfections  of  average  human 
nature.      But    what    the    time   im- 

79 


THE  NEED  FOR 

peratively  calls  for  is  that  we  rise 
above  our  normal  selves,  that  to  the 
best  of  our  conscience  and  ability  we 
cast  aside  self-interest  and  class 
interest  and  that  we  merge  ourselves 
in  the  great  and  high  task  to  which 
the  nation  has  set  its  hand. 

It  is  with  a  full  appreciation  of  this 
obhgation  resting  upon  every  one  of 
us — and  especially  those  of  us  who 
for  the  moment  are  permitted  to 
speak  pubhcly  to  and  for  business 
men — and  with  an  earnest  desire  to 
meet  this  obhgation  to  the  best  of  my 
conscience  and  judgment  that  I  have 
reached  the  views  and  conclusions 
which  I  have  ventured  to  express 
before  this  influential  body. 

The  other  day,  I  heard  a  distin- 
guished labor  leader  pronounce  a  state- 
ment which,  as  far  as  I  have  retained 
it  in  my  memory,  runs  as  follows: 

80 


SOBER  REASONING 

"I  have  always  done,  and  shall  always  do 
my  utmost  to  bring  about  the  maximum  of 
democracy,  of  social  justice,  and  of  oppor- 
tunity for  all  and  to  establish  the  very  best 
possible  conditions  for  the  masses  of  our 
people,  to  the  extent  that  these  things  do  and 
can  conform  to  the  practically  attainable  at 
the  time  without  doing  more  harm  than 
good.  To  the  extent  that  they  are  not  so 
attainable,  I  am  willing  to  discard  them  or 
defer  them  to  a  more  propitious  time." 

I  wholly  subscribe  to  that  and  I 
do  not  see  how  any  genuine  adherent 
of  democracy  and  well-wisher  of 
humankind  can  fail  to  subscribe  to  it. 

A  few  days  later  I  came  across  an 
article  by  that  gifted  and  clear- 
thinking  statesman,  Senator  William 
E.  Borah,  in  which,  referring  to 
tendencies  which  would  make  of  the 
United  States  "a  Republic  in  form 
but  a  bureaucracy  in  fact,"  he  uses 
the  following  language: 

"It  may  be  possible  to  devise  some  system 
81 


THE  NEED  FOR 

of  government  more  deadening  to  individual 
initiative,  more  destructive  to  human  pro- 
gress, more  burdensome  to  the  people  than 
a  bureaucracy,  but  so  far  God,  in  His 
infinite  mercy,  has  not  permitted  it  to  curse 
the  human  family.  Up  to  date,  the  worst  of 
all  forms  of  government  is  a  bureaucracy." 

And  to  that  also  I  subscribe. 

Gentlemen,  the  picture  of  bureau- 
cratic paternalism  fastening  its 
shackles  upon  a  nation,  which  went 
to  war  to  preserve  liberty,  is  not  a 
fanciful  one.  Through  the  accident 
of  war,  paternalism  at  present  rules 
supreme.  That  is  inevitable  in  war 
time. 

The  one  and  supreme  task  before 
the  nation  is  to  win  the  war.  No 
personal  or  business  consideration 
must  be  permitted  to  stand,  in  the 
way  of  the  necessities  of  that  task, 
and  no  one  must  for  one  moment 
hesitate  to  submit  to  them. 

82 


SOBER  REASONING 

We  are  not  criticizing  or  complain- 
ing of  the  present  facts,  we  are  think- 
ing of  the  future.  Officialdom  is  in 
possession.  It  is  entrenched  in  power 
beyond  what  it  dared  to  hope  for  in 
its  fondest  dreams.  And  power  is 
sweet.  Officialdom  and  those  who 
feed  at  its  table  will  not  easily  give 
it  up.  It  is  but  human  nature  that 
they  should  come  really  to  believe 
and  endeavor  to  induce  the  people 
to  believe  that  it  is  for  the  best  to 
leave  in  the  Government's  charge 
permanently  much  of  that  which  has 
been  confided  to  it  in  the  stress  of  the 
emergency  of  war. 

Bureaucracy  has,  and  will  have,  an 
array  of  plausible  arguments  to  sup- 
port its  plea.  I  heai'd  a  Government 
official  exclaim  dramatically  in  the 
course  of  a  speech  before  a  great 
meeting: 

83 


THE  NEED  FOR 

"If  such  and  such  a  measure  is  good 
enough  for  us  to  adopt  in  war  times,  when 
our  sons  and  brothers  are  offering  their  Hves 
abroad,  why  is  it  not  good  enough  for  us  to 
continue  to  have  in  peace  time,  when  our 
sons  and  brothers  will  again  be  leading  their 
lives  in  our  midst?" 

The  answer  is,  of  course,  that  war 
is,  fortunately,  an  utterly  abnormal 
condition  and  that  much  of  what  is 
appropriate  and  needful  in  war  times 
is  inappHcable,  harmful  and  even 
pernicious  in  peace  times.  But  the 
answer  was  not  given,  and  the 
orator's  question  was  greeted  with 
approving  applause. 

Paternalism,  under  a  variety  of 
names  and  disguises,  will  have  the 
support  of  the  vast  army  of  those  who 
live  or  hope  to  live  on  its  huge 
patronage.  It  will  have  the  support 
of  the  popularity-seeker,  the  oppor- 
tunist and  the  demagogue;  of  many 

84 


SOBER  REASONING 

who  are  rightly  desirous  to  further 
social  justice,  but  do  not  go  to  the 
effort  of  painstakingly  studying  and 
critically  examining  in  the  light  of 
reason  and  experience,  the  ways  and 
means  which  are  available  to  that 
end  "without  doing  more  harm  than 
good,"  and  of  some  who  are  moved 
by  envy  (consciously  or,  more  often, 
unconsciously)  towards  those  who 
have  been  materially  successful. 

It  will  have  the  support  of  numer- 
ous dwellers  in  air  castles  who  w  ant 
to  see  the  world  regulated  and 
ordered  after  the  pattern  of  their 
dreams,  and  of  the  socialist  who  sees 
in  the  assumption  by  the  Govern- 
ment of  various  functions  heretofore 
left  to  private  enterprise,  and  of 
various  regulating  activities  hereto- 
fore left  to  the  free  play  of  economic 
forces,   the   first   step   towards   the 

85 


THE  NEED  FOR 

adoption  and  realization  of  his  full 
program. 

The  movement  will  be  counten- 
anced by  many  who  do  not  suffi- 
ciently appreciate,  in  the  face  of  the 
lessons  of  all  history,  ancient  and 
modern,  that  the  only  free  govern- 
ment which  ever  has  lasted,  or  ever 
can  last,  was  and  is  a  government 
which  gives  the  broadest  scope  to 
the  individual,  limited  only  by 
equally  broad  but  wisely  conceived 
regard  for  the  general  welfare. 

Liberty  means  neither  uniformity 
nor  the  rule  of  mediocrity.  Liberty 
is  strong  enough  and  conscious 
enough  of  its  strength  not  to  fear 
but  to  foster  individual  capacity.  If 
political  liberty  is  not  the  sum  of 
individual  liberties,  fairly  ordered 
and  reasonably  restrained,  it  is  not 
liberty  at  all. 

86 


SOBER  REASONING 

It  would  be  a  tragedy,  if  it  were  to 
be  permitted  that  whilst  our  boys 
are  fighting  for  hberty,  the  great  and 
splendid  structure  of  ordered  and 
enhghtened  freedom  and  covenanted 
individual  rights,  which  was  handed 
down  to  all  Aniericans  should  be  invad- 
ed by  that  most  insidious.foe  of  liber- 
ty, paternahsm,  with  its  allies  and  close 
relatives,  bureaucracy  and  socialism. 

It  would  be  a  grievous  affliction  if 
under  the  emotional  stress  and  tur- 
moil produced  by  war,  our  people 
were  to  tolerate  doctrines  to  take  a 
footing  on  our  soil,  which  their  sober 
wisdom  heretofore  has  scornfully 
rejected  as  will-o'-the-wisps  and  as 
un-American. 

It  would  be  bitter  irony  of  fate  if 
whilst  democracy  triumphed  on  the 
bloody  fields  of  war  over  that  arch 
representative    of   the    paternalistic 

87 


THE  NEED  FOR 

system  and  spirit,  Germany,  om* 
own  governmental  and  social  con- 
ceptions and  practices  were  to  be 
infected  with  the  Prussian  poison 
of  paternalism  and  bureaucracy. 

The  illustrious  men  who  founded 
the  United  States  of  America  gave 
us  the  wisest  instrument  of  govern- 
ment which  the  wit  of  man  has  ever 
devised.  Gladstone  called  it  "the 
most  wonderful  work  ever  struck  off 
at  a  given  time  by  the  brain  and 
purpose  of  man."  A  great  British 
jurist  referred  to  it  as  "the  bulwark 
of  American  individualism."  Faith 
in  individual  effort,  and  the  aim  to 
give  it  incentive  and  protection  are 
of  its  very  warp  and  woof. 

Under  that  instrument  this  Repub- 
Kc,  through  test  and  trial  and  storm, 
has  lived  for  near  a  century  and  a 
half — a  space  of  time  far  longer  than 

88 


SOBER  REASONING 

any  other  genuine  republic  has  ever 
endured.  While  prospering  mater- 
ially beyond  all  parallel,  it  has  main- 
tained high  and  noble  ideals.  While 
devoted  to  the  arts  of  peace,  it  has 
preserved  its  sturdy  virility  and, 
whenever  called  upon,  has  splendidly 
demonstrated  its  undiminished  mar- 
tial prowess.  It  has  been  the  land 
of  opportunity,  beckoning  to  and 
drawing  hither  men  and  women  from 
all  countries  of  the  world. 

We  do  not  pretend  that  it  has 
achieved  perfection  in  its  social  con- 
ditions, we  earnestly  desire  ever  fur- 
ther progress  towards  that  end,  but 
we  do  claim  that  it  has  offered  and 
offers  to  the  masses  of  its  people  a 
fairer  and  larger  field  and  more  of 
reward  and  of  well-being  than  exists 
anywhere  else. 

Gentlemen,  it  is  the  task  and  the 

89 


THE  NEED  FOR 

duty  of  all  men  and  women  having 
a  stake,  material  or  spiritual,  in  the 
present  and  future  of  the  nation,  to 
resist  those  who  would  remove  or 
loosen  the  cornerstone  on  which  our 
institutions  rest — individual  effort. 
And  amongst  those  who  are  called  to 
that  task  and  that  duty,  the  business 
men  of  America  have  a  leading  place. 
We  yield  to  none,  either  in  the 
intensity  of  our  patriotism  or  in  the 
earnestness  of  our  desire  to  bring 
about  the  greatest  attainable  well- 
being  for  all  the  people.  We  look 
ahead,  after  victory  and  peace  shall 
have  been  achieved,  to  a  forward 
movement,  to  an  ever  more  widely 
diffused  prosperity,  to  opportunities 
and  achievements  in  the  field  of  the 
material  as  well  as  of  the  ideal,  such 
as  has  rarely  fallen  to  the  lot  of  any 
people,    provided    always    that    our 

90 


SOBER  REASONING 

country  remains  steadfast  to  its 
tried  and  tested  principles  and  time- 
honored  traditions,  wisely  and  fairly 
and  progressively  adjusting  their 
application  to  the  needs  of  the  day. 

To  that  end,  we  must  stand  to- 
gether, counsel  with  each  other  and 
work  together.  We  must  give  voice 
to  our  convictions.  We  must  become 
a  mihtant  phalanx  in  the  cause  of  that 
which  we  profoundly  believe  to  be 
right  and  wise  and  just  and  making 
for  the  greatness  of  America  and  the 
happiness  and  welfare  of  her  people. 

We  are  living  in  a  portentous  time, 
big  with  the  destiny  of  the  world,  for 
good  or  ill,  for  generations  to  come. 
The  problems  of  the  immediate 
future  loom  large  before  us. 

That  nation  which  will  best  know 
how  to  combine  the  dictates  of  social 
justice  with   incentive  and  protection 

91 


THE  NEED  FOR 

to  individual  effort  will  secure  the 
prize  of  world  leadership  no  less  than 
of  opportunity,  well-being  and  con- 
tentment for  the  masses  of  its  own 
people. 

Some  fifty  years  ago,  President 
Lincoln  addressed  these  words  to 
Congress: 

"You  cannot,  if  you  would,  be  blind  to  the 
signs  of  the  times.  I  beg  of  you  a  calm  and 
enlarged  consideration  of  them,  ranging,  if 
it  may  be,  far  above  personal  and  partisan 
politics.  ...  So  much  good  has  not  been 
done,  by  one  effort,  in  all  past  time,  as  in  the 
Providence  of  God  it  is  now  your  high 
privilege  to  do.  May  the  vast  future  not 
have  to  lament  that  you  have  neglected  it." 

Our  collective  responsibility  as 
well  as  the  responsibiUty  of  each 
patriotic  and  thoughtful  American 
is  heavy  indeed  in  the  face  of  the 
times  and  the  signs  of  the  times. 

Well  may  we  pray  that  the  spirit 

92 


SOBER  REASONING 

of  that  noble  invocation  and  the 
tolerance  and  moderation,  the  deep 
human  understanding  and  wise,  dis- 
passionate vision  of  the  immortal 
American  who  uttered  it,  may  lead 
and  inspire  the  American  people  and 
those  constituted  by  them  in  author- 
ity, in  the  trials  of  the  present  and 
the  perplexities  of  the  future. 

Well  may  we  pray  that  we  be 
vouchsafed  the  guidance  of  that 
spirit  both  in  the  solemn  days  of 
sacrifice  and  consecration  through 
which  we  are  passing,  and  in  the 
high  task  of  making  fruitful,  for  the 
good  or  our  own  country  and  of  all 
the  world,  the  victory  and  the 
triumph  which  will  crown  our  right- 
eous cause. 


93 


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